I found this post with instructions for how to set up my Drobo 5N2 as a git server for some new projects at home. Everything works fine until I reboot the Drobo. After it starts up again the git user I created in the earlier steps no longer exists. I can’t login as it and it does not appear in /etc/passwd. Is this normal or expected behavior? I don’t want to have to remember to log in as admin and recreate the user every time the machine reboots.

Yes, what you describe is expected/normal operation of the Drobo firmware. The directories in the root of the filesystem are reflashed from the firmware, that is why your edits to /etc/passwd do not persist after a reboot.

There are other threads similar to the one you reference that discuss a similar setup, and the same issue you are experiencing.

I have an idea for a workaround, but it does involve using the admin account from the Drobo Dashboard. The admin account for the Drobo Dashboard is added to /etc/passwd upon reboot, thus is a good account to use for Git actions. The admin account is added to sudoers, but is not always root.

I recommend setting up ssh keys on your clients, and an authorized_keys file in the /mnt/DroboFS/.ssh/ directory. The DroboFS section of the file system is persistent across reboot. Recommend changing owner to your admin account; i.e. not owned by root using chown(1). The (1) indicates chown is section 1 of the manual: $ man 1 chown.

I plan to make some shell scripts that automate creating a bare Git repo on a Drobo, and to add a repo on the Drobo as a remote - automation FTW. Once they are stable I will make them available via GitHub, and will post a new thread in the Drobo Apps section of the forum. I do not know when I will complete the scripts and push to GitHub, could be weeks or more.